Bob Dylan唱过一首歌, 就是那首鼎鼎有名, <阿干正传>女主角抱琴裸唱, 我的室友LY拿来做手机铃声的<Blowing in the Wind>.
歌词里面说, 男人需要走掉多少条道路, 才能称得上一个男人?
光走路是不行的.要成为一个真正的男人, 你似乎还需要做点特别的东西来作为成长的见证.
看看<阳光灿烂的日子>里马小军钻进烟筒后黑乎乎的模样, 和<麦田里的守望者>里面霍尔顿对麦田的无边遐想, 你或许就明白了.
以下为多年前就该主题写下的一篇英文习作. 十分稚嫩, 多多包涵.
How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger and Animals Being Fierce (Dong Wu
Xiong Meng) by a Chinese writer Wang Shuo portray respectively adolescents co
nfused by growing pains. Although the protagonists of the two novels, Holden a
nd Ma Xiaojun, live in different eras and cultures, they share much in common.
Scared by the complexity of the adult world, they find themselves confused du
ring the process of growing up. Dissatisfied with the reality, they choose a c
ynical and rebellious attitude toward the world and have to suffer from loneli
ness and alienation. After a period of chaos, they return to their routine of
growth and learn to adapt themselves to the adulthood and the reality. Their s
uffering reflects the common experience of mankind.
Both Holden and Ma Xiaojun are rebels of society. Holden is a sixteen-year
-old boy who has just been expelled for academic failure. He cannot put up wit
h the phoniness and superficiality of the people round him. Instead of working
hard, he wanders aimlessly on the streets, flirts with strangers and even hir
es a prostitute. In Animals Being Fierce, Ma Xiaojun’s experience is analogou
s to Holden’s. As the son of an army officer, Ma turns a deaf ear to his pare
nts’ instructions. He spends most of his time fooling around with other troub
le-making boys on the streets. He skips school, tease his teachers, sneaks int
o his neighbors’ houses and steals food. He associates with gangsters and par
ticipates in the street fighting. Holden and Ma rebel because they are at thei
r transitional age—a turning point between adolescence and adulthood. With no
clear direction, they find themselves like a fish out of water.
Before stepping into adulthood, both Holden and Ma are plagued by confusin
g feelings of growing up. Holden’s confusion is suggested by his conflicting
attitudes towards adulthood. On the one hand, he wants to interact with other
people on an adult level. He expects deep mental communication with others. To
show his maturity, he smokes, flirts with three women in their thirties, and
moves from one place to another in order to find intimacy with others. But at
the same time, he dislikes the hypocrisy and complexity of the adult world. Pa
rt of him embraces maturity, but the rest of him tries to escape from it. So h
e invents an idealized fantasy and dreams to be “a catcher in the rye.” In C
hapter 16, Holden hopes “everything always stay[s] right where it was,” so t
hat he does not have to grow up. Contradictory elements can also be found in M
a Xiaojin’s personality. Ma admires a girl named Milan, who is older than him
. When Milan calls him a “child,” he feels annoyed and looked down upon. In
order to prove that he is not a child, he recklessly jumps down from the top o
f a huge chimney. Miraculously, he survives, thanks to the thick layers of old
ashes inside it. He does not want to be treated as a child, but sometimes his
behavior is really childish.
There are also some differences between the two boys. For most time, Holde
n has no company. He is alone and lonely. He is described as an alienated indi
vidual in The Catcher in the Rye. He loves his younger sister, Phoebe, but whe
n he is with her, she does not understand him and even refuses to speak to him
(chapter 25). But in Animals Being Fierce, Ma is depicted as a member of a gr
oup, in which many adolescents share the same joy and sorrow. In other words,
J.D. Salinger portrays the alienation of an individual, while Wang Shuo lays s
tress on the confrontation between a group of adolescents and the rest of the
world. Besides, the two boys resort to different ways to relieve their frustra
tion. Holden dreams to be “the catcher in the rye,” where he is free from ad
ulthood and all suffocating obligations. Holden’s longing for nature can be t
raced back to Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” William Wordsworth’s “Lake
District” and James Hilton’s “Shangri-La.” It also chimes in with the Taoi
st tradition—whenever one feels frustrated in his (her) life, he or she can,
at least spiritually, turn to nature (woods, lakes, mountains…) for tranquili
ty. In Animals Being Fierce, these sophisticated thoughts never occur to Ma Xi
aojun. His strategy of relief is quite simple: daydreaming. He wishes there we
re a World War III, so he could join the army and become a war hero. Instead o
f evading into nature, he prefers to daydream on his bed.
To sum up, The Catcher in the Rye and Animals Being Fierce have succeeded
in portraying two antiheroes. The personalities of Holden and Ma Xiaojun overl
ap as well as they vary. Their rebelliousness, loneliness, confusion and alien
ation mirror the common encounters most adolescents have to face. Growth is fu
ll of ups and downs, just as a folk song goes, “How many roads must a man wal
k down, before we call him a man?” After that particular period of adolescent
chaos, they will step into adulthood and become mature.
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